Web Design Blog

Email marketing has always been a contentious subject in the business world, with it’s success rate, cost and the best methods always under the microscope. Mailchimp attempted to put a stop to this debate with a low-cost email marketing and newsletter distribution platform, incorporating the facility to track the progress of your newsletter. The idea of creating and managing your own email marketing campaign may seem like a lot of effort and for those a little bit technophobic a bit daunting, but with Mailchimp they will run you through the whole process in a step-by-step manner, detailing the requirements.

You can create a newsletter using the existing templates or create one entirely from scratch, either way Mailchimp provides a great platform to create engaging newsletters that will reach your target audience effectively whilst ensuring you incorporate the right content and links to get the best response from the recipients. The beauty of Mailchimp is that it provides a lot of the benefits of hiring professional email marketing companies to manage your campaign with nowhere near the same level of cost but a higher degree of control over all aspects. You can start using Mailchimp free of charge and if you have less than 500 target recipients and plan to send no more than one newsletter a month, then it is a cheaper alternative than a paid for supported service such as our own Toolkit Broadcast. Predictably there are certain benefits you don’t get with the free version but generally it can provide a good option for those wanting to try the service out, those with small mailing lists or those who do not require full support. For those who do not satisfy this criteria, our Toolkit Broadcast service is a better option.

Arguably the best thing about Mailchimp and other Email Marketing solutions is the comprehensive analysis of your newsletter and the impact it has had on those it was sent to. The report that can be viewed online or downloaded as a standalone document will show basic figures such as the number of email recipients and the amount of those who were sent it who successfully received it. In addition it will feature other really useful facts such as the number of people who actually opened the email, the number of clicks the newsletter got for the links on it, the number of times it is forwarded onto others by the recipients (and the number of those that subsequently open it) and the total amount of times the emails are opened (to analyse multiple views). Just like our own Toolkit Broadcast service it can even tell you the date and time (accurate to the minute) that the newsletter was last viewed.

One of the difficulties for businesses in the past was assessing how successful the newsletters are and how well received they were, but with the comprehensive reports produced by the likes of Toolkit Broadcast and Mailchimp it has given businesses the ability to view up-to-the-minute statistics on the success rate of the newsletters. They may be disappointed with this and decide not to pursue it in future or they may be surprised by how well the newsletters have worked out - either way they will be ideally placed to make an informed decision on how best to go forward with their email marketing efforts.

Toolkit Websites are web designers in Southampton, Hampshire, UK. Get in touch today and see how we can help your business grow.